1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to laminated inductors, and in particular, relates to laminated inductors having external electrodes formed on bottom surfaces of the laminate.
2. Description of the Related Art Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication (JP-A) No. 2002-260925, for example, describes a laminated inductor. The laminated inductor described in JP-A-2002-260925 will now be described with reference to FIG. 5, which is a schematic view of the internal structure of the laminated inductor.
A laminated inductor 101 includes a laminate 102 and a coil 103 formed inside the laminate. The coil 103 includes non-magnetic insulating layers and conductive patterns alternately laminated, and the conductive patterns are connected to each other one after another so that the coil is wound in a stacking direction along which the insulating layers are stacked. External electrodes 106 and 107 are formed on the bottom surface of the laminate 102 in the vicinity of the pair of short sides. Each end of the coil 103 is connected to the corresponding, or respective external electrode 106 or 107 on the bottom surface of the laminate 102 by lead conductors 104 and 105. These lead conductors 104 and 105 are embedded in the side surfaces adjacent to the short sides, and the surfaces of the conductors are exposed to the outside.
A laminated inductor having the above-described structure disadvantageously has a small area for the coiled electrode, poor efficiency of obtaining inductance, and poor DC-superposed characteristics since the lead conductors 104 and 105 are formed outside the coil 103. Moreover, such a laminated inductor is unreliable because the ends of the internal electrode are exposed to the outside.